Christy English

Anne O’Brien and The Uncrowned Queen

Monday, April 9th, 2012 | Anne O'Brien, Book Launches | No Comments

The lovely Anne O’Brien’s short story The Uncrowned Queen is out today on Amazon UK…follow this link and check it out.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Uncrowned-Queen-prequel-Concubine-ebook/dp/B007EAK13K/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1332

“Better than Philippa Gregory” – The Bookseller

“Anne O’Brien has joined the exclusive club of excellent historical novelists.” – Sunday Express

Her path to the throne is paved with treason…

1330. Philippa of Hainault may be married to King Edward III but she’s penniless and powerless. England quivers in the clutches of the Dowager Queen Isabella and her darkly ambitious lover Lord Mortimer while her husband rots in jail, a prisoner at Mortimer’s hand. It will take a courageous young man to emerge from the shadows and rise up against this formidable pair. Philippa won’t sit back and see Edward puppeteered. She is determined to see justice done. It’s her words whispered into the young King Edward’s ear that will see the battle for England’s throne commence. Mightier have fallen. Treason threatens. The victor’s prize is England…failure is death.

It’s a powerful union that ties Philippa and Edward in this darkly captivating short story but will it always be so? Don’t miss Anne O’Brien’s new book THE KING’S CONCUBINE coming out in the UK on May 4, 2012.

Anne O’Brien and Eleanor of Aquitaine

Monday, June 6th, 2011 | Anne O'Brien, Eleanor of Aquitaine | 2 Comments

I am not the only one obsessed with Eleanor. One of the people who shares my devoton is the lovely Anne O’Brien, author of the novel QUEEN DEFIANT.

It came out under the title of DEVIL’S CONSORT in the UK, and tomorrow, those of us here in the US will be able to get our own copies. QUEEN DEFIANT (US Version) tells of Eleanor of Aquitaine’s first marriage to Louis VII of France, her bid for freedom, and her newfound love for Henry of Anjou.

Anne has agreed to be with us today to tell us about…

Meeting Eleanor of Aquitaine …

Writing about Eleanor of Aquitaine can become a compulsion, as Christy knows from her splendid recent novel To Be Queen.  I found the same urge to tell Eleanor’s story.  What was it that drew me to write about a woman who was born almost nine hundred years ago?

My path first crossed that of Eleanor when I was holidaying in France, and I visited the impressive Abbey of Fontevrault.  And there she was, a Queen of England buried in France.   Eleanor was eighty years old when she retired from the world to live at the Abbey in monastic seclusion, yet remaining headstrong and politically aware until the final months before her death on 1 April, 1204.  There I discovered her, impressive in effigy despite the flaking paint, resting beside her husband Henry II, looking far more serene than I imagine she ever did in life.  Even Henry looks at peace which I think he never was with Eleanor for a mate.

What took my interest was that her hands are raised, not in prayer, but with an open book as if she were reading, her mind still lively even in death.  I like to think she is reading the verses the troubadours would have sung to her, even the ones her grandfather, the famous Duke William IX, might have written; some romantic and tender, some lewd and erotic.  Eleanor would have enjoyed them all.  The image has remained with me until this day.

And then there is the film Lion in Winter, Katherine Hepburn playing a magnificently aging Eleanor opposite an idiosyncratic Peter O’Toole as Henry, a stormy, volatile couple, unable to live together in peace in the final years of their marriage.  When I think of Eleanor as she was in later life, I still see and hear Katharine in that role.  Such power the screen has!

Another ‘meeting’ with Eleanor was in the fresco in the chapel at the castle of Chinon where Henry imprisoned her for long months at a time.  Here Eleanor, with red hair and crown, riding beside her daughter Joanna, is being led away by Henry to imprisonment.  She is handing over the gerfalcon, the symbol of Aquitaine to her beloved son Richard, Coeur de Lion.  I find this a very poignant and moving scene.

And so I was drawn to write about Eleanor, not in her later years as Queen of England, but in her early days in her first disastrous marriage to Louis VII of France and her dramatic union with Henry Plantagenet.  What an amazing life she led.  Exciting, controversial, passionate, not always wise in her choices, she proves herself to be a true heroine.  And what a remarkably strong voice she has despite the passage of time.  Never have I written about a heroine whose character was so clearly formed for me from the first moment I put pen to paper.  Anne Neville in The Virgin Widow, a young girl at the beginning of the book, took time to develop her voice.  Eleanor made herself known instantly.

So how could I resist breathing new life into this dramatic woman so that we might appreciate her today?  I allowed her to speak and act as I thought she would.  This is the story of Queen Defiant.  I loved writing her story; I found Eleanor totally fascinating, as I hope you will too.  Please visit me at my website and on Facebook for regular updates on what we – Eleanor and I – are doing.  I always look forward to hearing from my readers.

Find out more on my website @

http://www.anneobrienbooks.com/

Visit me on Facebook @

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/anneobrienbooks

You can also follow me, and Eleanor, on Twitter.

Anne, thank you so much for joining us today. QUEEN DEFIANT comes out tomorrow, June 7th, and will be available in bookstores everywhere.